Obama's odd pivot to Hope & Change 2.0

I watched State of the Union on ABC last night. Afterwards, in the brief window of frantic punditry before the rebuttal speech, the talking heads zeroed in on the lack of a conciliatory tone from the president. The GOP flipped the Senate! Shouldn’t Obama play it less arrogant and more chagrined?

I guess so, if SOTU were about a blueprint for working together. But nobody still thinks this, do they? At this point, when the Democrats occupy the White House and the Republicans run Congress, nothing much is going to get done. The Democrats do still have the presidential microphone, however, and last night Obama used it to strike a relatively combative tone. I don’t think this will rally the American people to demand that Congress enact the president’s agenda or anything. But nor was it a blown opportunity to improve bipartisan relations. No such opportunity existed.

Obama spoke like a president without much power to lose—or gain.